


i told you i would come back home

by Anonymous



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: 25 lives AU, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Royalty, F/F, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, genderbending for like two minutes let's go lesbians, it's pemdas baby, short pov switch near the end, you have to die to be reincarnated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-25 01:14:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19735393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Jaemin makes the mistake of letting go once, but the cosmos has a way of toying with the strings of fate, and it allows him to hold on to what he lost.A 25 lives au in which time and time again, Jaemin surrenders himself to someone who doesn’t remember him.





	1. is it easier to stay? is it easier to go? i don't want to know

**Author's Note:**

> now with beautiful [fanart](https://twitter.com/thelackvoid/status/1167879548999831559)  
> from my love [bobo](https://twitter.com/thelackvoid)  
> <3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Donghyuck is always so beautiful. If Jaemin didn’t love him, he would hate him for it.

Sometimes it feels like Donghyuck understands what is happening, and he’s making up for the lifetimes in which one of them doesn’t exist.

(In some of his lifetimes, Jaemin is too late. Sometimes he misses Donghyuck by a month, by a day, by a minute. Sometimes Donghyuck dies before Jaemin can find him. Sometimes Jaemin dies before Donghyuck is born. 

Still, Jaemin is always in love with him.)

Jaemin hates those. He would rather choose the ones where Donghyuck kills him. 

And Donghyuck does kill him in a lot of their times together. 

Once it was an accident; Jaemin was walking across the street, hands shoved in his pockets, his backpack half closed, receipt from the corner convenience store snagged in the zipper, and Donghyuck sent a text to his friend, something about being a little late, maybe, hands on his phone and eyes off the road. 

It happened quickly.

Jaemin didn’t know much about him in that life, only that he had soft looking hair and he would have to live knowing he killed someone. Jaemin would feel for him, but he’s gone before Donghyuck can find his phone again and call an ambulance.

In a different life, it’s not an accident. Donghyuck moves with less panic and more purpose, less naivety and more malevolence, and Jaemin is no different, a killer. It’s how they are programmed in this life, maybe. He would blame it on sad childhoods and unfortunate circumstances, but sad childhoods don’t make killers. 

Jaemin doesn’t really know what makes a killer, but he guesses that killers make killers. It’s a choice, maybe. Jaemin had made the choice when he was twenty-four years old. He’s thirty now, and he hopes that if he dies at the hands of someone, it is someone who can do it in the most agonizing way. He should go that way. He should pay for what he has done, shouldn’t he? 

It’s almost ironic that he’s on the end of Donghyuck’s gun a couple of months later, the taste of iron on his tongue and blood dripping from his mouth. Hands tied behind his back with a zip tie, Jaemin tests his binds, and he knows he could break free with ease. Donghyuck knows that too, from the cold blooded look in his eyes. It’s almost like he’s waiting for something, for Jaemin to try to escape. 

Donghyuck likes the chase, the hunt. Jaemin likes the feeling of cold metal pressed to his skull. 

And in all of Donghyuck and Jaemin’s shared tomorrows, Jaemin always surrenders himself to him.

With a cat-like smile, Jaemin locks eyes with Donghyuck, and he forces his bound hands against his back, breaking the zip tie with an ease that has Donghyuck’s face lighting up with delight. 

Jaemin runs, and Donghyuck chases. 

It feels so much like the old times, Donghyuck chasing him around the meadows and Jaemin pretending to slip on the wet grass so Donghyuck could catch him and his laughter would ring through the clearing. 

Jaemin misses Donghyuck so much.

And maybe this is the most agonizing way. Maybe Donghyuck killing him without a hint of familiarity or recognition in his dark eyes hurts more than the silver bullet that lodges itself in his heart. But Jaemin is happy like this too. Maybe living without him would hurt more than this.

Crimson colors the front of his shirt, and he dies with the red haired boy standing in a pool of his blood.

(An odd, unreadable look crosses Donghyuck’s face as the life drains from Jaemin’s eyes.)

Still, at least Jaemin can catch a glimpse of Donghyuck before the world fades to oblivion. 

Donghyuck is always so beautiful. If Jaemin didn’t love him, he would hate him for it.

_But I don’t blame you; I’ll never burn as brilliantly as you._

_It’s only fair that I should be the one to chase you across ten, twenty-five, a hundred lifetimes until I find the one where you’ll return to me._

He will just have to search for him again in a different tomorrow.


	2. stay awake, stay awake, stay awake with me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He would choose you.” Jeno says it like it is the most obvious thing in the world. “He would always choose you.” 
> 
> And it _is_ obvious. Jaemin knows. He has always known. That’s why he let go, maybe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [many "i hate writing" tweets later]

But once all is said and done, still, Jaemin and Donghyuck will look down on the same world. 

It’s not that Jaemin is immortal. No, it’s not him. If anything, it’s Donghyuck. He’s like a flame that burns continuously, stubbornly, brilliantly. Like the sun, Jaemin thinks. 

Donghyuck lives in Jaemin’s dreams. It’s how Jaemin always remembers him, maybe. Sometimes he knows who Donghyuck is before he knows who _he_ is. Maybe Donghyuck is what holds him together through the ages, all of him. 

Jaemin doesn’t really know it happened, the reincarnation thing, he doesn’t care, really. All he knows is that he is always in love with Donghyuck. Completely and helplessly.

(“Until when will you do this?”

Jaemin could pretend he doesn’t know what Jeno means. He could pretend he doesn’t hear the disappointment in Jeno’s voice. Jaemin could pretend he wants it this way, and he could pretend he wants to do this. He could. 

“Until I don’t have to anymore.” 

Jeno is silent for a long time, weighing Jaemin’s words, walking in circles around him, waiting until Jaemin caves in to him. And Jaemin does. He always does.

“Say it. What it is that you’re thinking.” Jaemin closes his eyes, holding his head up with his hands. “I know you want to say it.”

“He loves you, you know?” Jeno’s eyes linger on Jaemin’s hands, and Jaemin knows what he’s looking at, but he doesn’t say anything, and Jaemin is grateful for the small mercy. Jeno was always good at that, biting his tongue, turning a blind eye, saying only what he knows Jaemin could swallow. But he’s stopped handling Jaemin’s fragility with care. Maybe Jeno is sick of walking on eggshells around Jaemin. Jaemin doesn’t blame him. He would be sick of it too. “Five years is a long time, Jaemin, and _still_. Still, he is in love with you.”

Jaemin’s traitorous heart pounds with an age-old love.

“He would choose you.” Jeno says it like it is the most obvious thing in the world. “He would always choose you.” 

And it _is_ obvious. He knows. He has always known. That’s why he let go, maybe. 

(It shouldn’t be that simple, his reason, but it is, and maybe that is what Jaemin hates the most.)

“I know.”

Jeno looks at him with that look again, that look that makes Jaemin feel see-through; like he’s the only one walking in circles; like he’s running from someone who can’t chase him for much longer. Jeno doesn’t look away, so Jaemin does, shoulders tense and a bitter taste in his mouth. Jeno poses a question, one that should be simple but has so many implications that it makes Jaemin a little dizzy. 

“So why won’t you let him?” 

“Why won’t I let him _what_?” Jaemin rolls his eyes, taking more interest in the rings adorning his fingers. But Jaemin isn’t allowed peace of mind, and the sight of them only makes Jaemin miss him more. The prince had them made just for him. One for each birthday since Jaemin came of age. Jaemin blinks as the passing sunlight shines through the windows and blinds him, and he raises a hand to shield his eyes. 

Four rings catch the light of the sun. Four years have passed since Jaemin last walked the halls of the palace. 

He turns to Jeno again, a wry smile on his lips. “Let him love me?”

Today is Jaemin’s birthday. 

Another ring is in the small velvet pouch in Jeno’s hands, Jaemin is sure of it. By the time Jeno is gone, five rings will sit on Jaemin’s fingers. Five years have passed since Jaemin last laid eyes on Prince Donghyuck of the House of Lee. 

He knows what the rings actually mean. Jeno knows too, and he doesn’t allow Jaemin to forget it. Jaemin thinks that Jeno himself is a reminder. They are all that Jaemin has to remember Donghyuck by. 

“Let him choose you.” 

“Let him choose me? I love him too much to let him do that.” Jaemin laughs, but it sounds wry and bitter to his own ears. He wonders what it must sound like to Jeno. He touches the ring on his pointer finger, feels the wave of heartache crash down on to his shoulders, needs it to. It’s the first one that Donghyuck had made for him. “I wouldn’t ask him to do that.”

Jeno looks at him like he’s listening to a sad song, like he’s reading a book that will end in tragedy. Jaemin thinks he must have walked down this road for a long time, and Jeno has wondered for just as long if he will choose a different path. Jaemin doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he will walk this path until his last breath.

“That is his choice to make.” 

“ _I_ would cost him everything.” Jaemin feels his words like a hundred pins in his heart. He knows it’s true, so why does it hurt so much to say out loud? Jaemin looks at Jeno now, and he wonders if Jeno loves someone, if Jeno was a little braver than he was. “Would you let the person you love lose everything for you?” 

Jeno looks sad. 

“I don’t know.”) 

The very first time Jaemin remembers Donghyuck, he’s proposing to someone on the opposite side of the fountain, down on one knee and a ring in his hand. 

Donghyuck always liked things like that, romantic happily ever afters.

Jaemin tosses a coin into the fountain, and he makes a wish. It’s always the same wish. 

(“You should come home, Jaemin.” Jeno’s voice lowers, pleading, and something changes in the way he paces his words. The unspoken words have always remained unspoken, that was how it always was, but now that Jeno has spoken them into existence, Jaemin feels them like a hand around his throat. “For him.” 

Something about it feels off, like it’s an ultimatum, like this is the first and last time Jeno will ask. 

Jaemin looks up, narrowing his eyes as he picks apart the look on Jeno’s face. For the first time since he’s walked into Jaemin’s home, Jeno avoids his eyes. He’s hiding something. Jaemin knows it. Jeno knows Jaemin knows it. 

“Why are you suddenly saying that?” Jaemin asks, and he finds himself taking slow, careful steps to sit in front of his old friend as if he’s walking in a field of land mines and not his own home. “Tell me.” 

“I can’t.” Jeno holds his ground, once patient, kind eyes flaring with a temper that Jaemin doesn’t remember Jeno having. Has so much changed in a year’s time? 

Desperation winds itself tight around Jaemin’s hands, clenching them into shaky fists as he presses Jeno for more. 

“Jeno, please.” 

“Donghyuck made me promise not to say anything.” Jaemin wills his heart not to clench at the sound of his name, but he can’t help the way his body reacts to the image of Donghyuck, something old and dormant waking in a storm that stirs and stretches to the tips of his fingers. “He said that if you come home, it is by your own will.” 

“And he said that the last four years too.” Jaemin is only making a guess, taking a shot in the dark, but the look of pity in Jeno’s eyes confirms it. But why is Jeno saying this now? Jaemin knows Jeno, and Jeno would only cross Donghyuck if it was for his own good. 

Something has changed, something big enough to make Jeno ask Jaemin to come home. 

“Jeno, tell me what is different this time.” 

And Jeno looks at him for a long minute in complete silence, eyes heavy and imploring, looking through him. Jaemin knows that he’s searching for something, for recognition or sincerity, or _anything_ , but he doesn’t know if Jeno will find what it is he’s looking for. 

What if Jeno looks at him and finds nothing? Is he bare? Is he void of feeling? 

The thought makes him sick to his stomach.

“Do you really not know, Jaemin?” 

Jeno’s voice takes on something that sounds like realization; like he knows something that Jaemin doesn’t, like he knows something that will change the laws of motion. Jaemin hates it. He hates how his heart immediately drops to the bottom of his stomach. He hates how the only person he is worried about is Donghyuck. He hates how he is always worried about him. 

“Know _what_?”

For the first time since Jaemin has known him, Jeno looks afraid. 

“The kingdoms are at war.”) 

Jaemin remembers with the most fondness the lifetimes in which he and Donghyuck grow up together.

Donghyuck is a girl in this life, Jaemin too, and Jaemin first lays eyes on her at her first Taekwondo lesson. 

Jaemin is six years old then, and Donghyuck is two years older. Donghyuck is a firecracker, in simple words. Voice loud, and movements louder. Donghyuck is a blur of white and a stripe of yellow when she first runs up to Jaemin, a big, toothy grin on her lips and sweaty hair clinging to the sides of her face, and she holds out a small hand for Jaemin to take. “Let’s be friends, okay?” 

They are quick friends, quick to hold hands as they wait for their parents to pick them up at the end of the lesson, quick to ask if they can have a sleepover. “Pretty please with a cherry on top?” Donghyuck asks. Donghyuck’s parents are bad at saying ‘no’ to her, Jaemin can tell. She doesn’t blame them. 

She always shines so brightly, Jaemin notices. Donghyuck glows with the force of a million suns when she earns her first black belt four years later. It hurts a little to look at her, but Jaemin doesn’t look away. 

Donghyuck loves how Jaemin always goes along with her bad ideas. And though Jaemin grows up and realizes they are bad ideas, still she goes along with them. 

And in Jaemin and Donghyuck’s years together, Donghyuck has a lot of bad ideas. 

Jaemin loves Donghyuck, though. She would go along with a million bad ideas if only to listen to the sound of her obnoxious laughter, if only to catch a glimpse of her smile. 

And Donghyuck’s smile is always so, so beautiful.

Donghyuck shines a little more brilliantly around someone from class 4-A, the girl from Canada, Jaemin catches Jeno say. 

Jaemin is the first person Donghyuck tells.

“I like girls.” is what Donghyuck says, quick and simple, her lips pressed into a thin line. She looks like she could cry, really, like it would break her heart if Jaemin didn’t say something soon, if Jaemin didn’t want to be her friend anymore. And Jaemin knows it would. She’s important to Donghyuck, her best friend, after all. 

“I know.” 

“You _know?_ ” Donghyuck looks like she's going to cry again, or put her in a choke hold. Both, probably. “You know and you didn’t _say anything?_ ” 

“And miss out on _this_?” Jaemin runs a hand through her hair, laying back on her pillows. Jaemin doesn’t tell Donghyuck that she just wanted her first coming out to be a positive one. “Really I thought you would just suddenly tell me that you’re dating the girl from 4-A. Canada, right?” 

Donghyuck blossoms like a rose. “How did you know I liked her?” 

“I didn’t.” Jaemin snorts. “Now I do, though.”

Donghyuck shoves her face into a pillow, groaning, “I like her so much I think I’m going to lose my mind.”

Jaemin smiles genuinely as Donghyuck talks about her crush because Donghyuck is a mess of feelings, and she looks so cute like this, rolling around in Jaemin’s bed because she has an impossible crush on a pretty girl from the class across the hall and she doesn’t know how to confess to her. 

And Jaemin thinks that she loves Donghyuck like this too. Jaemin loves her in all ways. And if Donghyuck doesn’t love her as more than a friend in this life, Jaemin will be okay.

(“Read the letter, Jaemin.” Jeno says as he stands outside Jaemin’s door, and Jaemin feels the grief in his voice, sees the mourning in his eyes. What is it that Jeno is mourning? It is almost as if Jeno knows how this will end. As if he knows that Jaemin won’t read the letter until it is too late. 

Jaemin is sorry.

Jeno holds his hand, presses the small pouch into his palm, and Jaemin wonders if it is the last time Jeno will do this, will come to Jaemin’s home with a ring from Donghyuck. “Please read his letter.”) 

The stage lights are blinding, and Jaemin’s hair is hanging in his eyes a little, but he still sees him; front row, pressed against the barricade, holding a lightstick and a slogan with Jaemin’s face printed on it. 

Jaemin’s body suddenly feels heavy, and he holds onto the microphone stand for balance, forgetting his lines and blinking the stars out of his eyes.

He feels light headed, like he’s breathed in too much helium and not much more, what a stupid diet, Jaemin thinks, you should eat more than air, and he catches Mark moving across the stage—how does he move so fast?—and calling his name. Mark’s face looks funny above him. 

The screams of his fans grow in volume—did Jeno take off his shirt or something?—but it’s all white noise to Jaemin.

(Jaemin thought about reading it, the letter. He did, truly, but he couldn’t. He wouldn’t allow himself. And how do you win a battle against yourself? Do you always win? Do you always lose? 

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t care, really. All he knows is that war is coming. 

It comes in parts. At first it approaches slowly. Rationing of rice and bread. A count of able bodied men. Notices marked with the red royal insignia. Abnormal sounds in the far distance. You could only hear them if you strained. And suddenly it comes in like the tide. Crashing. Taking. Wiping out towns, villages, armies, populations. A path of destruction in its wake.

Jaemin wonders if he is standing on the shore now, if the tide will take him too. He wonders if it will take him far, far from everything he knows. 

The village fallen to chaos, word of enemy troops approaching, a storm of blood and fire and nothing more, they say, who they are, Jaemin doesn’t know. He is told by the old milk man to pack his things and go some place safe, safer than this small village with nothing but a market and gardens. If this place is not safe, who is to say that anywhere is? Who is to say that the palace—the big, white palace with its horses and trained knights, with its stone fortress, walls and towers is safe? 

Is Donghyuck safe? 

Still, Donghyuck is the only thing that crosses Jaemin’s mind. 

He has to be safe. He’s in line for the throne. Soon to be a king. 

But what is a king without a kingdom to reign, Jaemin wonders as he mounts his horse. 

Jaemin looks down at his hands, a glare blinding him as the light of the sun catches his ring. Four more hang from an old chain, hidden under his shirt, safe and sound against the slow beat of his heart. 

He casts one last look at the palace, the image a reminder of the boy with a voice like honey, and he rides in the opposite direction. 

And Jeno’s voice rings in his head. 

_“Do you really not know, Jaemin?”_ He said, this sad look in his eyes. _“The kingdoms are at war.”_

Jaemin was always bad at that, reading in between the lines. 

But maybe he just had to listen. Maybe he just had to listen to the desperation in Jeno’s voice, the knowing, the mourning. 

Donghyuck’s letter lays still in Jaemin’s pocket, untouched, but Jaemin knows what it says. He listens, listens to its hum, its song, and he feels it. 

Jaemin turns his horse around.

Jeno was mourning for Donghyuck, wasn’t he? Jeno had known how it would end.

A king will always go down with his kingdom.)

“Wake up, idiot.” 

Renjun hits him with a case file, and Jaemin whines, “Five more minutes.”

“Another homicide. Signs of a struggle.” Renjun looks tired. Jaemin makes a note to send him home early tonight. “I think there’s a connection to the last two cases. Close proximity to the murder locations and from what I know, the same drug was used to sedate this victim.” 

Jaemin rubs his eyes, stretching his arms high above his head. “Victim name?”

Renjun searches through the file, humming once he finds what he’s looking for, and he places a single photo in front of Jaemin. 

“Lee Donghyuck.”

(Jeno is right. He always is, it seems.

Jaemin doesn’t read the letter until all is said and done.

_You still have the other rings too, right? I know you do. I know you love beautiful things, so I always make sure to find the most pretty stones. You are worth it. You are always worth it. This one is the most beautiful, I think. I think it will be the last, too. Jeno told you, didn’t he? I told him not to, but I know him. It’s okay. You should know. You should go. Maybe to the mountains? You always wanted to see the world from up there. I’m sure it is beautiful. I’m sorry I can’t go with you._

_But once all is said and done, still, you and I will look down on the same world._

_Five long years have passed, right? But I know you are the same. You will always be the same to me. You are really stubborn, you know? You have always been, more than I am. It was foolish of me to hope you would read this in time. More so to hope that for once in your life, you would listen to anyone but yourself. I like that about you, though. You are so full of pride. If it makes you a fool or a good man, I don’t know, but I love you more for it._

_I know you. More than you know yourself, maybe. And I know you love me. I understand your heart. So if I don’t see you again in this life, it’s okay. I lived a good life with you, Na Jaemin. I will die knowing you loved me with every bit of yourself, so don’t worry about me. I will go with love in my heart too._

_I am sorry it has to be like this. I will be sorry until I take my last breath, I think. But I know you forgive me. You always do. And I know you will find me again in our shared tomorrows, and the day will come when I can hand you this ring myself. Hold onto it for me. And think about how you will make it up to me when I see you again._

_Until that day comes, live until you are old and gray and know good stories to tell me, and find someone who loves you as much as I do. And do not stop loving. Your love made me strong, and I pray that others will feel it too._

_Happy birthday, my love._

_Goodbye for now._

_Yours,_

_Donghyuck._

Jaemin’s heart breaks for the same boy it continues to beat for, stubbornly, uncontrollably.)

Sometimes Jaemin doubts Fate. Sometimes he looks up at the heavens and asks if it is allowing him to find his love again or if it is simply toying with him, breaking his heart time and time again.

Donghyuck is a prince again in this life, third in line for the throne, and he is so _familiar_ , so similar to how he was the first time Jaemin loved him that Jaemin almost allows himself to hope. 

Mischief lights up Donghyuck’s eyes as he slips out of his chambers at the dead of night when he thinks no one is around. It’s endearing, really, that Donghyuck thinks no one knows. The guards are always watching him, but Jaemin knows they wouldn’t stop him. And in this life too, Donghyuck is beloved, the kingdom bent around his pretty little finger; the king pretends he doesn’t know of his son’s midnight walks beyond the palace walls and the guards let the prince do as he pleases. 

He is stubborn in his beliefs, adamantly refusing to marry without love; Jaemin remembers the time Donghyuck charmed the king out of arranging a political marriage for him, all of the court officials gaping like fish out of water as the prince challenged his father. (Jaemin would call him brave if he didn’t know the prince had to down two glasses of liquid courage before daring to walk into the king’s court.) 

Donghyuck is growing older though, and almost a year has passed since his coming of age ball. Jaemin knows that the day will finally come where the king will draw the line and make Donghyuck choose a suitor. 

Jaemin prays from the bottom of his old, tired heart that Donghyuck is allowed to marry someone he loves.

And as if chance couldn’t defy something the cosmos chose, something that was written in the stars long before the sun became a star itself, Donghyuck is still so, so beautiful. Donghyuck’s hair is as black as night, and Jaemin doesn’t remember the last time it was, but he knows that it’s his favorite color on him. It makes Donghyuck look divine, like an angel sent down to Earth from Heaven to remind Jaemin of what he is fighting for— _who_ he is holding on for. 

If Jaemin closes his eyes and allows himself to dream for just a moment, he thinks that sometimes, like now as Jaemin returns him to his chambers for the night, Donghyuck looks at him the way he used to.

The stars glitter through the palace’s high windows, and Jaemin drinks in the glow of Donghyuck’s skin under the white light of the moon, but he lowers his eyes and ducks his head before the prince can catch him, “Rest well, Your Highness.” 

He still talks with a pout, and Jaemin knows that Donghyuck uses it to his advantage, exaggerating it when he wants something. The prince grumbles, pinning him with a grouchy look. “Didn’t I tell you to call me Donghyuck?” 

The words awaken something in Jaemin, and it’s like he’s back to his first life with Donghyuck. Heart wound tight and burning with a love like fire, suffocating him in its smoke, Jaemin bites hard into his bottom lip, desperate to feel pain, something, anything other than _this_ . 

Jaemin nods. It’s not the first time Donghyuck has bothered him about it, but Jaemin has always turned down the notion. He can’t cross that line. Not this time. “You did, Your Highness.” 

Donghyuck whines at that. “Same aged or not, I cannot convince you to drop my title, can I?” 

“I am afraid not, Your Highness.” Jaemin aches to kiss away the pout on Donghyuck’s face, hands twitching to touch, but he doesn’t move an inch, eyes lowered again and hands fisted in his robes. Jaemin has lived through enough lifetimes where he and Donghyuck belonged to different classes to know better, to know how it will end.

The prince whines again, but Jaemin hears resignation in his airy voice. “Goodnight, Jaemin.” 

Jaemin doesn’t know what possesses him then, blind courage or exhaustion, but once Donghyuck closes the door behind him, Jaemin allows himself to say the name that has sat on the tip of his tongue for as long as he can remember, “Goodnight, Donghyuck.” 

(On the other side of the door, a brilliant smile spreads across Donghyuck’s lips.) 

That night, Jaemin dreams of soft touches and familiar laughter. Maybe, finally, after so long, this is the life that Donghyuck will end up in his arms again. 

With the morning comes the crown prince of the Middle Kingdom. 

Jeno, he catches the maids say. 

Jaemin smiles at the thought of his old friend. 

In this life too, Jeno is a kind and gentle boy with a smile to die for. Donghyuck was always fond of him, put such trust in him, more trust than he put in Jaemin too. Sometimes Jaemin would wonder if Donghyuck would have been happier if he had fallen in love with Jeno instead. Jeno was always a little more brave, a little more compromising, a little more quiet in his love, maybe. But he had a good heart. 

Jeno would have loved Donghyuck like Jaemin did—like he does still. He would have loved Donghyuck with every bit of himself. 

And the moment Jaemin catches the look of fondness in Donghyuck’s eyes as the princes walk through the garden together, Jaemin knows that he will have to wait for another shared tomorrow with him. 

Donghyuck has found the love he’s searched for.

Jaemin is happy for him.

(The maid that stops him as he runs to Donghyuck’s chambers moves aside once she recognizes him, this sad look in her eyes, and her silent pity is as good of an answer as any, but Jaemin only moves with more fire, holding on tighter to something that is slipping through his fingers.

Jaemin holds Donghyuck’s letter in his shaking hands, and he walks into Donghyuck’s room with a determination that matches the fire of the last five years, a single, burning purpose that starts and ends with one person.

“Jaemin?”

(And maybe that was the moment Jaemin’s heart broke, finally, completely.)

“Jeno.” Jaemin closes his eyes for a moment, breathing slowly, and hot tears spill from his eyes. He looks around Donghyuck’s room, and it looks nothing like it used to, books piled up high on his table, maps and documents across the floor, ink spilled and little figurines placed messily around a map of the nation. He focuses on the only boy in the room. “I have to see Donghyuck.” 

Jaemin bites the inside of his cheek, shaking with the force of his sobs, and he forces out the question that wounds itself tight around him.

“Jeno, where is he?” 

He knows the answer, though. 

Maybe he had known all along too.

All of them did. No one said it out loud, but they had all known how this would end. 

“He’s gone, Jaemin.” Jeno looks up at him with swollen, blood shot eyes, body wound tight into a ball on the floor by Donghyuck’s bed. He sounds tired, like he’s exhausted himself past the point of doing more than looking at nothing in particular. Jeno looks lost, a part of himself gone with the boy that filled the space, the silence with his energy, his voice. “Donghyuck is gone.”) 

A blur of soft brown and orange, pink, blue, and green out of the corner of Jaemin’s eye. 

“Pink?” 

Jaemin looks up at the sound of an achingly familiar voice, a Pavlov reaction at this point. 

“Not bad.” Donghyuck says, scrunching up his nose as he looks Jaemin up and down; he arches a brow, but Jaemin doesn’t miss the small appreciative smile on his glossed lips. “I liked your silver hair more, though.” 

Jaemin met Donghyuck in this life when he was thirteen; Donghyuck, who was a child prodigy and passed the Saturday auditions, was larger than life, all that talent in a small body. 

If Jaemin wasn’t in love with Donghyuck from the start, he knows he would have fallen for him as the days, months, years passed.

The company asks Jaemin to call him Haechan in front of cameras, but his real name is Donghyuck again. Jaemin missed calling him by his name; it sounds right, like love.

Jaemin always recognizes Donghyuck no matter what he looks like, but this time, he sounds and looks the same as he did the first time Jaemin remembers him, down to the little moles that dot his skin and the pitch of his laughter. He was born on the same day too. Only the color of his hair changes with each comeback. Jaemin stopped trying to guess if the color of Donghyuck’s hair means anything a couple of lifetimes ago, but he always takes note of it. Jaemin thinks he remembers Donghyuck by the color of his hair. 

Donghyuck was a painter when he had hair the color of parchment, and he was a friend from college. More days than not, Donghyuck was sad. Some days he didn’t come out from under his covers, and some days he sobbed from dusk until dawn, but he was strong, and he always told Jaemin that he would fight until he didn’t have to anymore.

Jaemin didn’t live long enough to know what happened to him. 

Car accidents are an ugly thing, Jaemin learns. That’s how it ends a couple of times. 

Donghyuck was a teacher when he had hair the color of black coffee. He got a degree in biology, but he loved piano, and he ended up teaching music to elementary school students and giving piano lessons on the weekends. Donghyuck was kind in that life, too kind, really, walked on by his family, but he was happy and content with what he had. He had good friends and he loved a woman that loved him back. 

She was Jaemin’s little sister. 

And as much as it broke his heart, the wedding was beautiful; in an old church with stained glass windows and rows of the friends and family most important to them smiling on, Donghyuck glowed with the force of a million suns as he married the love of his life at the altar (it’s just a shame that it wasn’t Jaemin).

He had orange hair and a lip ring, a firecracker a moment before it burns red, maybe, when Jaemin ran into him at the night market. Jaemin lost him in the crowd after he mumbled his apologies, captivated in the shy second that he locked eyes with him. Jaemin didn’t see him again in that life; he wonders what his name was. Was it Donghyuck? Maybe it was Haechan. 

Jaemin can’t help but wonder what color of hair he will remember this Donghyuck by. 

The rainbow, maybe. It makes him look cuter than usual. 

“Silver?” Jaemin arches a brow. He looks at Donghyuck through the mirror as the boy stands behind him and drapes his arms around Jaemin’s shoulders, resting his cheek on the top of Jaemin’s head. This Donghyuck is touchy, and Jaemin thinks of it as the cosmos feeling sorry for toying with him and allowing him a life where Donghyuck returns his affections if only through innocent hand holding and side hugs. Jaemin takes it in like a breath of fresh air.

Touching his now pink hair, Jaemin smiles as he considers the fans’ reactions to the color. “I haven’t dyed my hair silver yet.”

“You haven’t?” Donghyuck asks. Jaemin watches through the mirror as confusion clouds Donghyuck’s eyes, and in a moment of silent contemplation, Donghyuck makes a face, wrinkling his nose. “I remember it, though.”

Jaemin doesn’t think much of it.

Then his heart skips a beat, and it soars. 

Jaemin did have silver hair once, but it wasn’t in this life. It was four lifetimes ago. Five, maybe. Donghyuck was an assassin in that life, trained to kill in one shot, vicious and cold with eyes like black obsidian, quick and clean, and Jaemin was his highest profile patron. 

Money is an ugly thing. 

He had a lot of money in that life, he remembers, and more enemies. And Donghyuck always got the job done.

This Donghyuck couldn’t have known that, though.

Hope rises in Jaemin’s throat, and it knocks the air out of his lungs. 

It’s a drowning feeling, a ball and chain around his ankle as he sinks slowly, but it wasn’t always like this. Sometimes hope is all that Jaemin has to hold onto in the lifetimes that Donghyuck doesn’t exist, in the lifetimes that he is just a fraction too late, in the lifetimes that Donghyuck falls in love with someone else. But in lives like this one, the lives in which Donghyuck is always so close, close enough for Jaemin to touch, hope is a hand that grows tight around his throat. In lives like this one, hope kills him from the inside out, slowly, carefully. Hope sounds like a mantra of he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not; hope looks like a delicate flower petal between Jaemin’s fingertips. 

It is a reminder that in every life, he is the one that chases, he is the one that searches, he is the one that loves. 

In every life, it is always “ _He loves me not_ . _Not like he did the first time_.” 

But like a fool, in all of their times together, Jaemin hopes, and he picks another flower, and he begins again. 

“Really?” Jaemin asks, he feels the warmth of Donghyuck’s body all around him, and he allows himself to fall back into the abyss. “I had silver hair?” 

“Yeah.” Donghyuck stands up straight now, and he scratches the back of his head, mouth drawn in a half-pout. He talks more to himself than to Jaemin, thinking out loud. “Maybe it was a dream.”

A teasing smile stretches across Jaemin’s lips. “Do you dream about me a lot?”

Donghyuck’s face grows rosy with embarrassment, lips parted and the tips of his ears bright red. He avoids Jaemin’s eyes in the mirror, looking away when Jaemin turns to look at him. “Shut up.”

“Answer the question, Donghyuck.” Jaemin catches Donghyuck’s hand, thumb rubbing comfort into his palm. He thinks about pressing Donghyuck for more. He was always a little hesitant around this Donghyuck, a little more distant than he usually is, but maybe it’s the cameras. Still the thought of Donghyuck dreaming about him makes Jaemin feel a little more brave. 

Jaemin wills his voice to go low and a little hoarse, soft just like how he knows Donghyuck likes it. “Please, Donghyuck?”

But he knows Donghyuck, and he knows Donghyuck wouldn’t allow himself vulnerability around so many searching eyes. Jaemin looks around the room, and he sighs in understanding as he counts four, five, six too many pairs of listening ears.

Jeno catches his eye from across the room, a question on his face, and Jaemin nods.

Jaemin holds Donghyuck’s hand tight and he takes him down the halls to a room that he knows is always free. It’s the practice room Jaemin always hid in when his voice was still changing, cracking in the middle of words, and he couldn’t sing the way the trainers told him to; he always found his way back here when his back still hurt if he moved too fast and he couldn’t dance for more than minutes at a time. 

“I do.” Donghyuck says as soon as he and Jaemin are alone, the lights in the room warm and soothing. “I dream about you sometimes.”

It was in this practice room that he talked to Donghyuck for the first time. Have six years passed already?

“Really?”

“Last night too, I think. I woke up crying, but I couldn’t remember why or what I dreamed about. Only that it was you.” Donghyuck was taller than him six years ago, broader too, but now he looks so small as he cowers into himself on the couch. Jaemin sits in front of him, on the old coffee table that Donghyuck wrote his name under, and Donghyuck looks up at him from under his lashes. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Jaemin. You’re always in my dreams.” 

As trainees, Donghyuck would climb into his bed when Jaemin had nightmares—that’s what Jaemin told Donghyuck it was, nightmares, not dreams about him, not old memories of him—, waking in the middle of the night with a sob fighting to climb up his throat, and Donghyuck would hold him until morning. Jaemin aches to hold him like that now, to run comforting hands down his side and press soft kisses onto his forehead until he feels okay again, safe and sound in Jaemin’s arms, but Jaemin doesn’t know if he’s allowed. 

“Nothing is wrong with you, Donghyuck.” Jaemin says, a sad look on his face. “Don’t say that.”

And as if the universe is out to prove him wrong, Donghyuck winces, hands shaking uncontrollably and face contorted with pain. 

(Donghyuck holds his head in hands, groaning as the dreams come flooding him, a splitting headache thundering upon him. But the look on Jaemin’s face, Donghyuck blinks, vision blurry, patience, eyes filled with this tired understanding, makes Donghyuck scream, but no sound comes out. Donghyuck coughs, pounding on his chest with his fist, and Jaemin catches his wrists, holding him down with his weight.

“Breathe, Donghyuck.” Jaemin says, but Donghyuck _can’t_. Donghyuck’s lungs burn with hell fire, like he’s swallowed a gallon of gasoline and a box of matches, and he chokes for air, chest rising and falling only to mimic the action, but it’s like he’s forgotten how to breathe. Like someone deleted files from his storage to make room for dreams that he doesn’t remember having. 

He feels Jaemin’s hands on his face, soothing, and Jaemin’s voice sounds like air. “ _Breathe._ ”

And finally, Donghyuck takes in a breath. It feels like euphoria. 

It feels like someone has split his head in two and has moved on to his heart.

_“Don’t say that.”_

Is that Jaemin in his dreams? In all of them?

“Jaemin.” Donghyuck breathes out through a sore throat, and he puts a hand on his heart to make sure it’s still there, to make sure no one has stolen it too from under his nose. Voice thick with emotions that don’t feel like his but _are_ , a thousand apologies climbing up his throat, fighting to be freed from the cage of Donghyuck’s chest, but what is it that he has to be sorry for? Donghyuck parts his lips, but the words sitting on the tip of his tongue sound broken, torn up and glued back together. “Jaemin, it’s you again.” 

Jaemin’s face is blank above him, but his eyes look so old, so familiar in a sense that it makes something in Donghyuck awaken, and Donghyuck’s vision goes blurry again.)

Donghyuck goes still in his arms, looking at Jaemin, but not actually looking at him, glassy eyes unfocused and lips parted.

Jaemin wills himself not to ask for too much. He knows he will see Donghyuck again, so it’s okay if the dreams mean nothing.

Still, Jaemin always wonders if this is the end. If this is actually Donghyuck. If this is the life that Donghyuck loves him again. 

Jaemin holds Donghyuck’s hand, and he waits. 

(“What would be the first thing you would do if you could live a normal life?” Jaemin asks, folding his hands behind his head and stretching his legs out across the wet grass. The boy’s voice floats with the wind, and Donghyuck feels the hope in it. “What if you woke up tomorrow and you weren’t a prince?”

Donghyuck almost laughs at the question. 

It’s a question that he has asked himself too many times—one too many times, really.

The kingdom is asleep this late at night, Jaemin’s chosen cliffside too far from the palace and too hidden from the village, but Donghyuck listens closely, and he feels the pulse of his people beat like a drum.

He can’t live a normal life; as long as he is a part of the royal bloodline, as long as he has a claim to the throne by pure birthright, as long as he walks this earth, he can’t. And he knows that. Jaemin knows that. 

Donghyuck thinks the question is as calculated as it is innocent.

Jaemin turns on his side to peer up at him from under long lashes, hand falling warmly on Donghyuck’s knee, and Donghyuck can feel his eyes tracing the slope of his nose and the shape of his lips; he can feel him committing them all to memory as if it’s the last day they have together. 

And something about Jaemin’s weight of question makes Donghyuck believe that it is the last time he will see Jaemin, but he doesn’t say anything. He was always good at that, choosing his words, walking on eggshells, and Jaemin was always good at filling his silence, pretending that he can’t read the look of heartbreak on Donghyuck’s face. 

Jaemin’s touch is endlessly warm. Donghyuck likes that the most about Jaemin; he is always warm, and he always loves Donghyuck. When he is beautiful, when he is ugly; when he is strong, when he is shaky; when he is brave, when he is afraid, Jaemin is always in love with him. He feels it, Jaemin’s love. Donghyuck feels it with every part of himself, and he lets it ground him. He vows to hold onto it until his last breath.

“Me?” Donghyuck muses, catching Jaemin’s wandering hand and holding it in his lap. “If I wasn’t a prince?” 

Donghyuck grins easily. “Dismantle the monarchy.” 

“Be realistic.” Jaemin snorts. “And actually think about it.” 

Donghyuck sticks out his tongue, but he does as Jaemin says. (He always does as Jaemin says.)

He thinks, and he trains his eyes on the sky until the white light of the moon makes his eyes sting. The man in the moon is mocking him, he knows. An answer already sits on the tip of Donghyuck’s tongue. It was always there, maybe long before Jaemin had dared to ask the question, waiting for the right moment, for the right time. But it sits still, waiting for Donghyuck to swallow it down, for Donghyuck to come up with something different to say, something safe to say.

Jaemin knows him, though, and he knows a lie is coming before Donghyuck can part his lips. 

“And you don’t have to lie to me.” Jaemin complains through a bubble of laughter. The sound is soft and familiar, and it reminds Donghyuck so much of orange candlelight in the dark of night, of soup and stale bread eaten in the palace kitchen long after he should be asleep, of warm hands and a smile like coming home. 

Jaemin’s laughter makes Donghyuck’s heart ache in the same breath it warms him to the tips of his fingers. 

“It’s just a question.”

But it’s not just a question. Donghyuck knows it. Jaemin knows he knows it. And maybe that’s the thing about Jaemin. He asks questions that he already knows the answers to.

He asks questions that he doesn’t want to know the answers to.

“If I woke up tomorrow,” The prince starts, slow and careful, and he’s walking on eggshells again, but he doesn’t mind the feeling. He needs to feel it. “and if I could choose?“ 

Donghyuck lays down parallel to Jaemin, close enough to press his body against him but far enough to feel the distance. He closes his eyes for a second, lashes resting on the tops of his cheeks, and when his eyes fall open again his vision is taken by the night sky.

The answer would be written in the stars; it always was, and it always will be. And it is too, tonight. The stars move to spell it out for him, but he’s always known the answer; he’s known since they were children, maybe. It’s sat on the tip of Donghyuck’s tongue since the day the old kitchen maid told him what love is, since the day he found it in Jaemin. 

He’s always known he would love Jaemin. Completely and irrevocably. 

The man in the moon calls him a fool.

Donghyuck surrenders.

With his free hand, Donghyuck searches his robes for the familiar feeling of cold metal. Donghyuck knows it’s there. He’s carried it around in his pocket for days now.

Donghyuck wonders what it would look like on Jaemin’s fingers.

And as soon as Donghyuck finds it, he holds the ring above the both of them.

“I would ask you to marry me.” 

Jaemin’s breath hitches, and Donghyuck’s heart warms at the sound of it. 

Donghyuck closes his eyes again, and he listens to the shifting of Jaemin’s robes and the fallen leaves crunching under him as he moves. Jaemin’s presence looms above him, and Donghyuck’s winning smile only widens when Jaemin makes a whiny noise at the back of his throat. 

He doesn’t bother to look, eyes still pressed shut, but Donghyuck can feel the look on Jaemin’s face. He holds Jaemin’s hand closer to his heart, “Did I say something wrong, my love?” 

“Your Highness. ” Jaemin warns. 

“I told you not to call me that.”

Jaemin sighs, “Donghyuck.”

Donghyuck hears the edge to Jaemin’s voice, strained, as if someone is holding him tight by the neck, slowly killing him from the inside out, and Donghyuck lets his eyes fall open. Donghyuck’s eyes gravitate to Jaemin, like they always have, and he feels his heart clench at the look of grief on Jaemin’s face.

What is it that Jaemin is mourning? Donghyuck asks to no one in particular. The possibility of us? 

“Is it so impossible for me to propose to you?” Donghyuck fakes a pout, turning the ring in his hand. “Don’t tell me… The diamond is too small?” 

“Donghyuck.” Jaemin repeats his name like a prayer, pleading. Donghyuck sits up to face him, and there’s this pained, sorry look in Jaemin’s eyes that Donghyuck hates more than anything. What does he have to be sorry for? For being born below Donghyuck’s station? For being everything Donghyuck could want but that he cannot have? Jaemin was always like that. Sorry for things that have nothing to do with himself and everything to do with Donghyuck. 

(Maybe it should be Donghyuck who is sorry. 

It is nights like this that he feels the weight of the kingdom on his shoulders the most. The blood in his veins, the throne with his name on it, the birthright that feels more like a cage than a crown. He had doomed them from the start, hadn’t he?)

Jaemin’s eyes glisten with tears, mirroring the night sky itself and catching stars to hide in the depths of cold waters. A sad smile graces his lips, and it is as beautiful as it is heartbreaking how much love a smile could hold. “I told you to be realistic.” 

What Jaemin means is _“Don’t make promises you will break.”_

But it isn’t a promise, is it? 

It is only Donghyuck wishing upon a star.

“Na Jaemin,” Donghyuck cradles Jaemin’s face in his hands, tracing slow circles with his thumbs into his skin, and Jaemin leans into his touch. When Jaemin closes his eyes, tears flow down his cheeks, and Donghyuck kisses them away. Donghyuck doesn’t promise. He just knows. “I would choose you.” 

“Don’t say that.” Jaemin moves to shy away from his touch, that same sad look painting his face and that same strain in his voice, but Donghyuck doesn’t let him go, hands sliding down to rest under his jaw and holding him close. 

Jaemin looks like Donghyuck just broke his heart. 

_Did he?_

“Please, Donghyuck.” A wrinkle forms between Jaemin’s brows and Donghyuck smooths it away with the pad of his thumb. “Don’t say that.”

“I love you.” Donghyuck’s voice gentle, quiet enough for the wind to drown out if it howls too close, but he means his words with every ounce of him. He feels it down to the tips of his fingers, this feeling of affection that would not fade, this feeling of patience that would not thin, this feeling of _feeling_. It feels a little like oblivion to feel something so passionately, so completely and helplessly, to feel something that is so much bigger than he is, but Donghyuck lets it take him whole. 

“I have always loved you.” Donghyuck mumbles, touch endlessly gentle as he runs a hand along Jaemin’s cheek. Jaemin looks at him now, stubborn and like a child told to go to bed, but he’s listening, and Donghyuck can only see himself in Jaemin’s eyes. It was only ever him, wasn’t it? For Jaemin, it was always him. “I will always love you.” 

Jaemin sinks into his arms, and Donghyuck holds him for a long time.

(Maybe they love each other too much to ask for more than this. Maybe they know each other too well to make promises like this. 

And maybe they are not fated to grow old and gray together in this life. 

Donghyuck is sorry. He will always be sorry.)

Jaemin moves away, and Donghyuck mourns the loss. Not the loss of warmth. Not the loss of Jaemin’s hands on the small of his back. He mourns what he cannot see. He mourns what is still here. 

“I loved you in my past life too, maybe.” Donghyuck holds the ring in between his fingers, moonlight catching the silver, stars dancing along the cut diamond, and he presses it into the palm of Jaemin’s hand. “And I will love you again.” 

Donghyuck believes in second chances, after all. Third, fourth, fifth chances. As many as it takes.

Jaemin is worth it. He always was, and he will always be worth it.

Donghyuck presses a kiss to Jaemin’s forehead.

“You just have to remember that you love me too.” 

Above them, the universe listens, and a star shines its brightest.

The last thing Donghyuck says before he falls asleep to the sound of autumn cicadas and Jaemin’s breathing is “Happy birthday, my love.”

Jaemin is gone by the time the sun rises, but Donghyuck knows he will come back home to him again.)

“Donghyuck?” Jaemin asks, a hand cradling the side of Donghyuck’s face and the other caged in Donghyuck’s own hand. “Are you alright?” 

Donghyuck blinks. Something has changed, Jaemin knows. He can see it in Donghyuck’s eyes. Donghyuck looks at Jaemin, and for the first time in a long time, it feels like he actually sees him. 

Jaemin had longed for this moment for as long as he can remember. He had waited lifetimes for this. So why does it feel like his world is falling apart again? 

“The dreams.” Donghyuck whispers, voice low and small, unbelieving, but believing. Fighting for something he knows is true, but noting his own doubts. Could it be his imagination? He looks at Jaemin now, and he has that look in his eyes again—the look that reminds Jaemin of how long it’s actually been since Donghyuck was _Donghyuck_. “The dreams are memories, right, Jaemin? Mine. Ours.”

_Ours._

Jaemin’s eyes sting, and his breath catches in his throat; a fire burns in the bottom of his stomach, and he wonders if the flames will turn his old heart to ash. He feels warm, like he’s inside of a microwave, like his skin is going to melt off of his bones, and he thinks this is what it must feel like to come too close to the sun.

“You loved me.” Donghyuck doesn’t ask it like a question. He just says it, plain, simple, as if he knows it’s true. And Jaemin knows that he feels it too, feels Jaemin’s love for him, then, through the ages, now. “You remembered that you love me. Just like I told you to.”

He smiles, but diamond teardrops fall from his eyes, like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. If he should mourn lost time or take what he has right in this moment.

Jaemin wonders what it feels like to be the one who forgot. 

He wonders if Donghyuck feels sorry. But what does he have to be sorry for? Maybe Jaemin should be the one who is sorry. 

Donghyuck always lived in Jaemin’s dreams, as _his_ Donghyuck and all the Donghyucks that followed; maybe none of them were Donghyuck, maybe all of them were. Still Jaemin had the memory of him; he had the memory of blonde haired, sad Donghyuck, black haired, content Donghyuck, his Donghyuck, and this Donghyuck. 

Donghyuck had nothing.

And now that Donghyuck remembers him, now that Donghyuck remembers _himself_ , Jaemin wonders if it feels like watching a movie backwards. 

Jaemin knows this movie by heart, though; he knows the characters inside and out, he knows the lines like the back of his hand, he knows how it begins and how it ends, and he would watch it a hundred times if he had to. 

Donghyuck is worth it. He always was worth it, and he will always be worth it. 

Jaemin doesn’t know he’s sobbing until Donghyuck wipes his tears away with his hands.

Donghyuck’s touch is warm and gentle, and Jaemin has missed him so much. 

“I couldn’t forget you if I tried, Your Highness.” 

Donghyuck’s smile looks like the stars, a force as powerful as the sun, but soft. “I thought I told you not to call me that.”

“I missed you so much, Donghyuck.”

“You always had me.” Donghyuck holds Jaemin’s face in his hands and kisses his pain away. “I just didn’t know it. Now I do.” 

(The movie goes something like this: 

Jaemin always loves Donghyuck. 

Every single time. 

It’s what he was born to do, maybe. And Donghyuck was born to love him back.)

“You know, I think you have something of mine, Jaemin.” Donghyuck mumbles into the crook of Jaemin’s shoulder, hands tangled in Jaemin’s morning hair and his thigh stretched across Jaemin’s middle. The sun shines through the blinds and it warms Jaemin’s skin, covers abandoned to the side of his bed. 

“Your heart?” Jaemin can feel Donghyuck’s smile against his skin. It feels a little like the warmth of the sun, and a little more like happiness. 

“Say that again and I’ll break up with you.”

Jaemin touches the chain around his neck, feels the ring hanging from it, feels the love flooding his veins and warming his heart. “Does it have a really big diamond and look like it’s worth a million dollars?” 

Donghyuck snorts. “That sounds about right.”

“Actually I think that belongs to me.”

“Really?” Donghyuck sits up to look at him, brow arched and half-smile on his lips, and he tucks his face into Jaemin’s shoulder again. Jaemin feels Donghyuck’s lips press into the cotton of his shirt. “Who says I didn’t change my mind?”

Jaemin thinks about the letter he knows by heart. “I know you. More than you know yourself, maybe.” 

And he does. Jaemin knows him like he knows every Donghyuck. And he knows that Donghyuck loves him again. Jaemin’s heart pounds with a love bigger than he is. “And I know you love me.” 

Donghyuck makes a noise of protest at the back of his throat, but Jaemin can feel the warmth of his cheeks.

Jaemin finds Donghyuck’s chin, and he moves to take a good look at his face. Against the white of his pillows, Donghyuck glows with golden warmth, brown eyes shining with fondness and a familiarity that makes Jaemin feel like he’s known him all of his life. All of them.

“Donghyuck.” 

A small smile on his face, Donghyuck looks up at him from under his lashes, and Jaemin can see himself in Donghyuck’s eyes. He had forgotten what it was like to see himself like that. He looks happy.

“What?” 

Jaemin presses a kiss to Donghyuck’s forehead, _his_ Donghyuck, and he knows that after all this time, this is the life that they will grow old and gray together. 

“I love you too.” 

Jaemin is finally home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that is the end!!! i had lots of fun and lots of. not fun at some points. writing this but this is my first time writing so much in such a small period of time!!!!! i usually only have the attention span for maybe half of this so this is!!!! absolutely bananas!!!!! it may not seem like much but it's a personal milestone and i'm really proud of myself!!!!! thank you so much for reading i hope it was worth your time ^~^


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